The invention generally relates to packet-based multimedia communications over a wireless network, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for determining and reserving bandwidth for a wireless channel in order to support delay-sensitive, streaming data, such as audio and video data.
Wireless data communication systems for transmitting multimedia data, including audio, video and other data, are known. Recently, the explosion in the use of the Internet has dramatically increased multimedia data communication needs, including wireless data communication needs. Internet communications follow a packet-based protocol with wide variance in the size and frequency of packets. Generation of Internet packets generally occurs without regard to the actual physical networks that will carry the data. While this packet-based communication has great advantages, it presents numerous challenges for the efficient transmission of data over a particular physical network.
Known wireless data communication systems that support Internet access are typically a xe2x80x9cretrofitxe2x80x9d of Internet packets on top of an existing physical network. Unfortunately, these retrofits do not typically efficiently use bandwidth. And, performance is either sacrificed or uncontrolled, where performance includes parameters such as delay and jitter. Most existing systems over engineer the available bandwidth to accommodate a predefined maximum amount of traffic. Although this may be acceptable in wired networks, the limitations on wireless networks do not permit such a luxury. While all wireless packetized data presents some challenge, packetized audio and video streaming data is particularly challenging since the performance, namely, delay and jitter, may inhibit effective communications, in particular in the case of a two-way conversation.
Therefore, a need exists for a new paradigm in the communication of multimedia data over a wireless channel.